Читать книгу Voices from the Vietnam War - Xiaobing Li - Страница 13

A Buddhist Soldier Defends

a Catholic Government

S.Sgt. Huynh Van No was very affable and gregarious, even though he had a tough time during the war and a fatigued life thereafter. Before each interview in Ho Chi Minh City, he usually started a conversation with me and my wife on an interesting topic like the difference between traditional Mahayana Buddhism in Vietnam and Westernized Buddhism in America. Sometimes they were so engaged that I had to step in by offering them a cup of “caphe sua” (Vietnamese ice coffee) before they got carried away with their enlightening and serious discussions.

Staff Sergeant No was serious about the common Western assumption that the ARVN failed to defend its own country even with American direct intervention in the Vietnam War.1 He argued that this supposition is not fair to the ARVN, which he entered in 1962 at eighteen. His testimony suggests that the ARVN departed from traditional values and lost popular support only after the Americans transformed it into a modern army.2 Its modernization or Westernization detached the ARVN from Vietnamese society. In other words, while providing advanced technology, military training, democratic ideas, and even Christianity to the ARVN, the United States should also have promoted nationalistic pride as a reason for the South Vietnamese soldiers to fight for their own country's independence and sovereignty. Ignoring and overlooking Vietnamese nationalism made the ARVN a hotbed of apathy. Staff Sergeant No felt like he was fighting for his Catholic commanders, President Diem, and American advisers, not for himself, his family, and the Vietnamese people.

In retrospect, the U.S. Vietnam policy was originally aimed at supporting the government and people of South Vietnam in their efforts against Communist aggression. From the beginning, Pres. John F. Kennedy emphasized that the South Vietnamese should fight this war “by themselves, for themselves, win or lose, it is their war, the people of Vietnam against the Communists”3 He authorized $41 million to improve the ARVN and the civil guards in 1961. According to Staff Sergeant No, his unit and other ARVN troops had made some progress in carrying out some of President Diem's policies, like the “Strategic Hamlet Program” in 1962–1963.4 The program was designed to protect the rural population and neutralize Viet Cong insurgents. However, the battlefield failure in 1963–1964 convinced American leaders that the ARVN could not protect its government and South Vietnam from further attacks by the PLAF and NVA. Their assumed failure and incompetence influenced the Johnson administration's military escalation of the Vietnam War in order to help the hopeless South Vietnamese in an American way.

Approximately 3.6 million South Vietnamese served in the ARVN from 1963 to 1975. During that time, most of the adult males between seventeen and forty-five years old were drafted into the war and stayed in the army until the end.5 Staff Sergeant No was wounded during the Viet Cong's Tet Offensive campaign in 1968, but was lucky enough to live to see the end of the war.

S.Sgt. Huynh Van No

First Battalion, Third Regiment, An Giang Provincial Command, ARVN (South Vietnam)

I was born in 1944 into a peasant's family in Long Hung, a small village near Long Xuyen, An Giang Province, South Vietnam. As the youngest in the family, I had seven brothers and sisters. Their hard work in family farming helped me through elementary and secondary education in the town of Long Xuyen. I enjoyed riding my bicycle along the river to my school every morning, waving good-bye to my father and brothers who already worked in the rice field. Our teachers talked about the First Indochina War all the time, but it seemed far away from our classroom in the late 1950s.

My favorite subject was drawing and painting, both in watercolor and oil colors. I had painted a lot of pictures of the rivers, rice paddies, and people in my hometown. The life was so quiet and peaceful at Long Xuyen that sometimes I was even bored to death. I dreamed of leaving our village and traveling all over the country.

I liked visiting the Buddhist temples with my parents and grandparents either in our village or in the city. I met many people there, including my relatives, friends, neighbors, teachers, and those whom I didn't even know. It seemed natural for the Vietnamese families to carry on their religion from one generation to the next as a family tradition. Like in my family, my ancestors were Buddhists, so my grandparents, my parents, and my generation just kept it going on and on as the Buddhists forever.⁶ One of the most exciting things during my childhood was riding in the boat (for a whole day) down the river and climbing to the top of the Ba Den Mountain to see the Buddha statue in the Ba Den temple.

At the beginning of the 1960s, some troops of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam [ARVN] moved into Long Xuyen and were stationed in several camps along the country roads. They were Buddhist soldiers, since I saw them quite often at the Buddhist temples in the city.⁷ They protected the villagers from being harassed by the South Vietnamese Communist guerrilla troops, or the Viet Cong [VC]. Since we lived nearby the city, I didn't see any Viet Cong during my school years. Also I didn't know much difference between the antigovernment Viet Cong and Pres. Ngo Dinh Diem's government. At that time, I really admired the young ARVN soldiers who carried their rifles in uniform, walked around with a lot of attention in the town, and shopped at the market with cash.

In 1961, President Diem called up the young Vietnamese for service in the ARVN to fight against the Communist insurgents in South Vietnam. I answered the call and joined the army in 1962. Reluctant and unhappy, my parents had to make a tough decision: either letting me go or losing one of my older brothers as their field hands. What made them feel better was that I joined the ARVN provincial forces, which stayed in each province under its military regional command.⁸ My training camp wasn't too far away from my hometown, even though I couldn't go home and visit my family at all. My brothers told me later that my parents prayed a lot for me in the village temple when I served in the army.

During my three-month training, I remember that everyone was so happy when we got paid about $20 per month. It was the first time in my life to see so much money in my own hands. We would spend money in the market and eat lavishly with our money. At the time, I didn't know that we got only one half of our pay since the corrupt training officers kept the other half for themselves. Later I was told that some soldiers might leave the army if they had made and saved a lot of money. In fact, my monthly pay of $20 wasn't enough for me to survive outside the camp for one week since the cost of living in our area was $100 per month, or $25 a week. Anyway, I was happy with the little money I got at the moment. I am a Buddhist, and always satisfied with what I have.

Vietnam, 1955–1975

Many new recruits were Buddhists just like me. I enjoyed meeting so many young men from all of the country. I had never traveled that far in my life to know the people from cities like Can Tho and Ca Mau. Friendly and kind, they were as scared as I was to go into the war against Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Communists. I made some friends at the camp.

During our training, the training sergeants told us that nobody was allowed to eat outside the base. We had been warned not to go out into the nearby town in our uniform. The sergeants and the American advisers were paranoid that the food outside the base could be poisoned. I didn't understand why we, as Vietnamese soldiers, were afraid of our own people. Anyway, I was not afraid. One day I snuck out with a couple of my friends into the town. My friends and I saw corn on the cob and other food sold by peddlers in the street. We bought lots of corn and hid it in our tents. The training sergeants would come in and lift our blankets and yell at us.

Most of the training officers were Catholic. I knew that our president was Catholic, too. Loyal to him, I liked President Diem and wanted to fight for him, even though I didn't know much about Christianity. In Long Xuyen, there were two small Catholic churches among a couple dozen Buddhist temples. It seemed to me that the rich kids and wealthy families went to the Catholic churches every Sunday. They had to dress up or wore something very nice to go in there. They had to know how to read French or English. We didn't have to worry about our dress or shoes when we stopped by at the Buddhist temples. Anybody can go in there anytime.

At the training camp, I received a copy of the Bible for the first time. Of course, it was in Vietnamese. I could read it, but I didn't. These Catholic officers were very mean people, who yelled to us every day, beat some of the new recruits, and even spit in our soup and then asked us to drink it up. They were not nice to us at all. They only wanted to please their superior officers and the American advisers in the camp. They worked for the Americans and got paid by the Americans anyway.

After the training, I was assigned to the First Battalion, Third Infantry Regiment of An Giang Command, Fourth Tactical Zone. My battalion stationed around Cai Dau to protect Route 9, one of the major provincial roads. It was a little far away from my hometown. From 1962 to 1964, we worked on President Diem's “Strategic Hamlet Program” in the villages around Cai Dau. Our company moved into a village and worked with village armed teams, or the Popular Force, to build up their defense work. The “Strategic Hamlet Program” was aimed at separating the Viet Cong's guerrilla troops from the South Vietnamese farmers in order to cut off their supply and recruitment and reduce their harassment.⁹ After we finished the defense work construction and trained the local farmers in one village, we moved on to another village. It seemed to be working and we felt very good by helping the farmers just like us. I liked the policy and enjoyed what we were doing for their safety and protection against Viet Cong insurgents. I felt that we had accomplished our mission each time leaving a village. I became a corporal in 1963. Unfortunately, President Diem was killed later that year and then the “Strategic Hamlet Program” was winding down in the next year.

In 1965–1966, we began to engage in the battles. Many of these fights took place in the hills, forest, or along the river. I had no idea why we were sent out in the middle of nowhere. The country became ugly because of this long war. We saw some forest burned down to the ground, some hills turned black because of heavy bombing, and many shell holes all over the rice field. I was scared every time we were sent out in the woods or on the hills. Our battalion took heavy casualties and some of the men just deserted during the operations. I also saw many civilian casualties, including women and children who were just like my neighbors and friends in my hometown. I prayed every day for Buddha's mercy through my faith for the end of this endless killing and destruction.

More American advisers came to our battalion. They commanded many of the battles. We were asked to learn how to speak and read English. I started my English study by taking some conversation and reading classes offered in our camp. Because of my educational background, I made a good progress in my English learning and soon became a teaching assistant to our American language instructors.

The year of 1967 was the best year in my service since I was selected to receive further training as Battalion Maintenance Officer in the United States. For the first time in my life, I took a military airplane and flew out of the country. There were five other ARVN officers in this training group. We studied the curriculum in military technology, communication, and management at a U.S. Army base. Then we took some hands-on training courses. We learned a lot of new things in three months. We had a good time during our training in the U.S.

S.Sgt. Huynh Van No (left) and the author in Ho Chi Minh City in 2006.

After my return, I got promoted to a master sergeant. The year of 1968, however, was the worst in my service. We had more casualties and deserters than ever before. I tried to take care of my unit during each operation. But the battle got tougher and tougher, since we were then fighting against the well-trained regular forces from the North Vietnam Army [NVA] rather than the guerrilla troops of the Viet Cong [NLF]. My friend got shot in the back and I got injured in my arm in a battle. The bullet was aimed for me because I was the one with the machine gun. The bullet's casing chafed my arm. I still have a big scar. I remember my friend. He was lying down on his stomach right before he got shot in the back. When he was hit, his whole body rose almost two feet into the air and he ended up on his back. It was so sad to see your friend die.

The wound prevented my return to the combat unit after my hospitalization. In 1969, I was so happy to know that I was reassigned to a training base near Long Xuyen, my hometown. Since I knew how to speak and teach English, I became an instructor of English language and small arms in the training programs from 1970 to 1975. My family was happy to see me back alive and working as an officer in the city. I also taught English as a part-time teacher at a local middle school, which I enjoyed the most, in 1972–1975. I visited the Buddhist temples with my students and traveled to the Ba Den Mountain with my family. You know what happened to me after 1975.¹⁰ As a Buddhist, I am always happy.